Probable Cause

by Ridley Pearson

  “Aren’t we staying for dinner?” she asked.

  He could tell that this was her third or fourth cocktail. He started to take the drink from her, but she slipped it away, upended it, and drained it down to ice. “There,” she said. She kissed him on the lips. “Where to?”

  Fifteen minutes later, they parked in the Ocean Avenue parking lot, placed Clare’s dashboard notice out in full view—OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS—to avoid being towed, and, hand in hand, walked down toward the water. It was cold, though Clare didn’t seem to notice, and they held each other tightly as they walked along the water’s edge.

  She said, “While you were with Jessie, Manny Roth tried his best to glean every little piece of evidence we have on the Lumbrowski case. Specifically, he kept inquiring about Lumbrowski’s apartment. They invited me to try and pick my brain.”

  Dewitt detailed his meeting with Jessie Osbourne.

  She asked, “James, why the different evidence on Lumbrowski? If it isn’t suicide, which I agree, then why the changes?”

  “There is another explanation,” Dewitt admitted. “Someone killed Lumbrowski in a copycat kill to shut him up. Let’s say Lumbrowski became demanding and threatened to expose where he had gotten those files from. How would Capp have responded? We know they met at least twice: once at the station house; once at Capp’s. I can’t believe Capp would have intentionally killed Lumbrowski. But if he had discovered that those files went from himself, to Roth, to Osbourne, and then to ‘his buddy’ Lumbrowski, he would have been furious. They might have had a fight. Something could have gone wrong. Then Capp would have plenty to hide, and the only person likely to connect him to all of it—”

  “Is you,” she interrupted, squeezing him more tightly.

  “Is us,” he edited. “I downplayed this to Jessie, but he could suffer badly for copying those files, for working with Manny behind my back.”

  It began to drizzle. He asked whether she wanted to return to the car and she told him no. She wanted to keep walking. He thought it might be so that she could sober up. She was loose: a good time to get her to open up. He said, “What about you, Clare?”

  “Me?” she asked.

  “How did you get into forensics?”

  “A case. A case while I was in college. It wasn’t any major news-breaker or anything. A coed was murdered. It happens. I followed the case.”

  “And?”

  She walked farther before explaining, “The cops didn’t have any leads, didn’t seem too interested. I know better than that now, but at the time that’s how it seemed. I went to the crime scene… an alley. Found a couple shoe prints down an adjacent alley. Wide steps, like someone running. I talked to a professor of criminology about it. He referred me to criminalistics. I didn’t know what criminalistics was. One thing led to another… a professor spoke to the cops because they used our lab on occasion. Some forensic evidence was turned up. The cops gained a renewed interest in the case. The medical examiner identified the murderer’s hair color, red, and his blood type. We had what proved to be one of his shoe prints. Cops reinterviewed the boys she had been seeing. One on them was a redhead who wore Converse All Stars. They ran a blood chem: perfect match. He confessed when they presented him with the evidence. I was hooked.” After a moment, she said, “You know I never tell that story. We all get into this for our own reasons—sure not the pay—and somehow when you explain them, they sound kind of stupid. I’ve heard a lot of stories how people get started in this business. Most of them are personal; you can’t understand them unless you were there.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl who was killed… who was she, to you, I mean?”

  The question gave her a moment’s pause. Waves rolled to shore, silver-edged stilettos cutting the silence. Dewitt placed his hand on her back. “She was my roommate,” she said, “Nancy Gail Adams.” She pawed the sand with her foot. “One night, she went out to have a beer. The next day, she was buried back on page seventeen, a statistic. I had lived a fairyland existence. People didn’t get raped and stabbed in my world. That’s what he had done to her. Nancy was as normal as they come. Could have been me that night; I didn’t feel like going out.”

  They finished out the walk despite a brief but torrential downpour. They held to each other like a pair of ice dancers.

  “I make a mean omelette,” he said as he pulled her Saab into his drive.

  “I’m drenched,” she said.

  “There’s some stuff. You could change.” He waited behind the wheel, hoping she might accept, then said, “Oh, well. Maybe another time.”

  “Her stuff?”

  “No. I gave that away. I’ve got some sweats, you know, that kind of thing.”

  “What kind of omelette?” she asked, opening her door. They discussed available ingredients on the way inside.

  “Will we wake Emmy?” she asked as they reached his front door. Testing.

  So that’s what she’s worried about, he thought. “Staying with a friend,” he informed her.

  Closing the front door, he looked down the hall. It stretched endlessly to his room and offered a glimpse of the bed. “Third drawer down. Some shirts in the closet,” he told her. “I’ll cook.”

  He went about preparing the eggs, his ear cocked toward the bedroom. Out of nervousness, he started whistling. He was whipping the eggs into a yellow froth when he heard the pipes whine. She was taking a shower, a good idea considering how chilled they both were. However, the image of her in there did nothing to help his concentration. Still whipping the eggs, he lost hold of the bowl’s edge and the motion of the whisk sent the bowl, eggs and all, careening across the countertop like a flying saucer. He dove to save it, but futilely. It spun off, flying briefly through the air and plummeting to the floor, miraculously sparing the bowl but leaving a spreading gooey yellow puddle. He hastily effected a cleanup, only to realize those were his last eggs. He was standing there with an egg-soaked towel in hand when she appeared in the living room, barefooted in his terry-cloth robe. He had washed it in a load of blue jeans a few months back, so it was now what Emmy called “bachelor blue.” Her damp hair was combed straight back, her face plain but attractive without makeup. The open neck of the robe reached between her breasts. “That was incredible,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind. I was headed for a cold without that.”

  “Don’t mind at all.”

  She tugged the robe closed. “I’ve never looked very good in sweats. Your turn,” she instructed, pinching his damp shirt between her fingers. “Out of these things. I’ll finish up here.”

  “I ah… We’re out of eggs.”

  “Go,” she said. “I’ll think of something.”

  The bathroom held her slacks, blouse, bra, and panties, all hung neatly on hangers, hung to dry above the forced air vent. The bathroom mirror was fogged except for a polished oval where she had checked her face. The comb lay on the counter with a few of her long hairs caught in its teeth.

  He slopped his clothes in a heap on the floor and ran the shower water until steam climbed and curled over the frosted glass door. The hot water melted his uneasiness.

  He was soaping up when, above the sound of the running water, he heard the bathroom’s clock radio switch on. Classical music filled the tiny room. He leaned back against the cold tile wall knowing she was coming to him. The automatic night-light came on as she turned off the bathroom light. When she opened the shower door, the pale bulb cast a candlelight glow behind her, capturing her naked form in an alluring silhouette.

  She came to him as a mistress might come to a man, sensually and thoughtfully, with a deliberate slowness that stimulated him. In the darkness, he could not make out any expression on her face. Was she smiling as he was? “Clare,” he said, but she placed her finger to his lips to silence him and pressed herself firmly against him. She ran her nails delicately down his back, pulling them more tightly together, folding her head tenderly into his chest.

&nb
sp; She was careful with him; he tentative with her. They echoed each other’s explorations. Steam swirled. The bar of soap was down there somewhere, down where he had dropped it, squirting beneath his feet as he stepped on it, shooting around the shower like a hockey puck.

  They held each other closely, the water running warmly. She looked up at him. His eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he saw that unmistakable expression on her face: desire, wonder, intrigue. Their lips met—an amazing and welcome sensation.

  His knees felt weak. Her hands fluttered over him, the skittish wings of a bird.

  “I want you, James,” she whispered above the rushing water. “I know it’s awfully quick,” she added, “but I know who I am. I know what I want.”

  There was something in that hungry tone of voice that reminded him so much of Julia that it was no longer Clare in the shower with him but his late wife. Stunned, Dewitt stepped back, separating himself from her.

  “James?” Clare asked in a frantic, anxious voice that feared rejection.

  He heard Julia’s voice. He sank slowly to the tile, dropped to a sitting position. Defeat.

  “James?” She tried once more. “Say something. Don’t do this to me.”

  He shook his head, unable to look up at her.

  She left the shower quickly, tripping, nearly falling.

  He heard her fumbling with her clothes, heard a hanger bang on the counter.

  “Clare?” he called out.

  “Don’t, James. I don’t want to hear it.”

  He made it out of the shower. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t!” She had her bra and underwear on. She was struggling comically with the slacks. He stepped up from behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She slapped the slacks down and pulled on his hands to release her.

  “I freaked out, that’s all,” he said.

  “You made me feel cheap. That’s all!” she replied. “Me and my big mouth,” she added.

  “Please,” he said.

  She was struggling with the slacks again. “Goddamnitall!” she thundered, bending with the slacks over her arm to grab her shoes. Crying. She pushed him away and ran from the bedroom, out toward the front door, where she hesitated only briefly before charging into the darkness in her underwear.

  Dewitt snagged the robe from the bed and tried to fish his arms into it as he followed her, the whole time calling out her name and apologizing. He followed her outside, a fraction late as she slammed down the car’s door lock. “Clare,” he pleaded through the window, finally tying the robe shut. She reached for the ignition and then slammed her fist on the steering wheel and leaned forward in tears.

  Dewitt walked around the car and opened the passenger door, which she had neglected to lock. “I’ve got the keys inside,” he informed her. “It was Julia, Clare,” he explained. “I think that was my final farewell to Julia. I know it was. There’s someone more important now. I’m not going to fall into the same trap that holds Emmy. I want out, Clare. I need you.”

  “James,” she pleaded, shaking her head in confusion.

  “Please,” he begged.

  She had deciphered the inverted leg of the slacks and was pulling them on, arching her back and tugging.

  Dewitt climbed into the car, took her by the shoulders, and kissed her. She released the pants and tentatively reached for his face, returning his affection. He was trying to explain between kisses, and she to him, but neither understood the other’s words, the touching more important. Her hands slipped inside the robe, and then just as quickly, she opened her door, took him by the hand, and dragged him through the car and out the other side. He wouldn’t allow her to simply walk away. He swallowed her in his arms, she laughing now, trying to delay him, trying to keep hold of her unfastened slacks, which impeded her movement.

  “The door,” she said.

  Dewitt let go and returned to kick the passenger door closed. The interior light went off. She hopped toward the front door then, struggling with the slacks, looking like a young girl in a potato-sack race. She fell through the front door, laughing hysterically, sensing Dewitt’s pursuit. She limped down the hallway, glancing several times over her shoulder. Dewitt had decided on an imitation of Frankenstein, marching forward, the robe hanging open. He heard wet slacks hit the floor, heard her dive onto the bed, still bawling out her nervous laughter, heard her clawing toward the headboard, where, as he reached the bedroom door, he found her waiting for him, naked, her skin fleeced with gooseflesh, arms open, eyes sparkling with excitement. Anticipation.

  He pushed the door shut behind him and shed the robe. As he reached for the wall switch, she said in a husky and sensual voice, “Leave the light on. Please. I want to see you smile, James. I want to make you smile.”

  7

  MONDAY

  1

  Monday morning presented Dewitt with a stark reality: He was living again. Had he been more aware, perhaps he would have looked back on himself as having been something of an automaton over the last five months—getting through the daily grind but seldom rising above it. In front of him lay three stacked manila folders, names of the dead scribbled on the tabs. He wanted no part of the dead. Intoxicated by a magical fatigue that soaked clear through him, he felt rebellious, confident, composed. In one night—a few short hours—she had made him feel appreciated. Loved, again—if only for an evening. And though guilt briefly attempted to steal his pleasure, he would not allow it to do so. Julia, of all people, would want him to feel love again, in whatever form it manifested itself. There was no greater feeling. That two people could physically connect so perfectly amazed him. Clare’s unbridled passion, her ability to prolong, to massage the two of them to such an explosive climax, left him steeping in the deep ache of bliss.

  The first unavoidable event of the day was a phone call from Leala Mahoney. She was short with him, her sentences clipped, her mood strictly professional. Peter Tilly, he was told, was willing to drop all charges if Marvin Wood would wear a wire for his theft investigation. “That leaves you, Dewitt,” she concluded rudely. “You either have to charge him or let him go. You offered my client a deal. I believe he cooperated as fully as he was able. Is your offer still good, or do we do the dance?”

  He needed to stall her. His voice was sure as he said, “No charges on this end, Counselor, but I may need to talk with him, and I don’t want to have to call out the National Guard to do so. Clear?”

  “You’re keeping some rather chichi company, Dewitt. Since when does a Carmel detective get a private audience with Jessie Osbourne?” She sounded jealous. “And then to skip the banquet. You had to catch up on your lab work, Dewitt, was that it?”

  Hoping to break the ice, he offered, “It was good seeing you last night, Leala. That dress is very becoming on you.”

  “Go to hell, Dewitt,” she said. The dial tone hummed in his ear.

  ***

  “Dewitt?” Commander Karl Capp, his protruding belly hunching his shoulders forward, stood at the door. “You mind?” He jerked his head toward the chair in front of Dewitt’s desk. Dewitt nodded his approval, doing his best to conceal his surprise that Capp was entering his territory. Was he supposed to stand? He began to get out of the chair and Capp said, “I got it,” and closed the door. Sitting, the fat man said, “So, you’re trying to bust my stones,” an icy stare biting into Dewitt. “Let me tell you something about life, kid. You never play a hand too early, you always keep your cards facedown, and you never sit in front of a window or a mirror. You go sucking up to a political animal like Jessie Osbourne, you better know what the fuck you’re doing. She’ll chew you up and spit you out faster than you can think.” He smiled then, a grotesque confidence that on any previous day would have disturbed Dewitt. “You’ve been invited back on to the Lumbrowski case as of now. I don’t know exactly what was said, but this kind of a move attracts attention, buys you enemies. What I hear: Morn has been suspicious of your involvement in all of this because of your little spat at The Ho
rseshoe. You have motive, Dewitt. Your and Brow’s relationship was not exactly a secret. That’s why you were kept off the case. Now you’ve gone and stolen it back. You see? That’s okay. That takes some serious stones—”

  “Me? Morn was trying to call it suicide, blame it all on Lumbrowski, make him look bad. And what motive? I’m Lumbrowski’s defender now!”

  “You’re in the big leagues, Dewitt, and I’m not sure you’re ready. Guys who move to the bigs in their rookie year, they either become stars or they disappear. The reason I bring all this up,” he continued, “is that with your getting this invitation back onto the Lumbrowski case, then this case is sort of under me… because you are under me,” he emphasized. “Remember, your performance reflects on all of us. You brief me every step of the way on Lumbrowski, Dewitt. You withhold even one of your fuckin’ little fibers… And as for these copies of your reports… you think you aren’t a suspect here? Guess again. You think I’m worried about these alleged copies you keep referring to? Can you produce these copies?” He waited for an answer. “Well?”

  “No.”

  “No, you can’t. Can you even say for sure that such copies exist?”

  “No.”

  “No, you can’t, can you?” He snickered and then jeered. “Okay, then hear this, Dewitt, Mr. King of Evidence: Until you can produce them, they don’t exist. Am I right? Damn right, I’m right. So if you think I’m losing sleep over your damned copies, you’ve got another think coming.”

  Dewitt felt his blood pressure rising, the heat of rage in his cheeks. He assumed this meant Capp had found the Lumbrowski papers and done away with them. He wondered about the missing ounce of coke. “I think you had better leave, Commander. It’s beginning to stink in here. You forget to brush your teeth, or are you just breathing out your asshole?”

  Capp turned crimson. “The thing is, Dewitt, a person’s got to pick his fights carefully. You pick the wrong fight…”